New
Mexico Subsurface Data, Core & Cuttings Libraries

Overview

These publicly available facilities
contain more than 20,000 boxes of New Mexico core (oil & gas core
and mining core), cuttings from more than 16,000 wells in New Mexico , logs from 50,000
New Mexico wells, maps of frontier and the lesser productive counties
showing locations of oil & gas exploratory wells, and other useful
subsurface geologic data. These libraries are an important source of geologic and engineering
information regarding exploration for, and development of, oil and natural
gas, water, coal, uranium, carbon dioxide, and helium in New Mexico. The
Subsurface Library is used extensively by industry, students, state and
federal agencies, the general public and by our geologists. Several hundred visitors
and telephone inquiries are received each year. A brief description of our collections and their uses can be found here in this Earth Matters article.

Data elements on file include:
well cuttings (15,000 wells), well records (100,000+ wells), drillers
logs (17,000 wells), electric and other geophysical logs (50,000 wells;
some with mudlogs), sample descriptions and sample logs (4,300 wells),
petroleum exploration maps that show well locations in frontier counties
(26 counties), pool maps that show locations
of producing oil and gas pools by stratigraphic unit (personal digital
version available as New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources
Circular 209), production data, geologic maps, petroleum-related publications,
and a limited number of core analyses and drill-stem test records. Facilities
and microscopes are available for cuttings analysis, and worktables are
available for visitors. Photocopies of records such as well logs and petroleum
exploration maps may be obtained at nominal cost. Arrangements can be
made to borrow cuttings and cores upon payment of shipping costs and arrangement for shipping. Please contact Annabelle Lopez at the Subsurface Library for more information; Annabelle is the curator of our core and cuttings collections.
Companies and individuals who wish to donate cuttings, cores, logs, or other
information to the Subsurface Library are asked to call, email or write. Donations
are always welcome and most of our materials have come from donations
of generous companies and individuals.

Because our collections continually grow, there may be material available that is not listed in the lists provided by the above links. If there is something you want but do not see on the lists, please contact Annabelle Lopez, Amy Trivitt-Kracke or Ron Broadhead.

Three of our new modern, steel core buildings located on the New Mexico
Tech campus in Socorro with interior photos of core and core storage. Each building holds tens of thousands of feet
of core, an irreplaceable resource for study of the earth and its processes.

Our new cuttings facility has an extensive storage area and a laboratory facility for cuttings examination and sample processing.

Our cuttings library is housed in a new steel building that was erected in 2015 as part of the construction effort that produced our new Bureau of Geology building. The cuttings library houses almost 51,000 boxes of drill cuttings from more than 16,600 drill holes. These represent 150 million ft (28,400 miles) of drill hole, which if set out end to end would wrap around the earth 1.14 times. Oil & gas, minerals exploration, and water well drill holes are represented. Our new facility gives us room to expnad our collections. The library contains an examination room, microscopes, a black-light UV box, a sample processing area and other equipment essential for cuttings examination and analysis. Almost all of the cuttings come from New Mexico wells although a small number come from bordering areas of adjacent states. The latter are helpful because geology does not stop at state lines. A map of the locations of cuttings within New Mexico can be found in this Earth Matters article. An Excel spreadsheet of the cuttings in our collection can be accessed here (cuttings list). Companies and individuals who wish to
donate cuttings to the Cuttings Library are asked to call or write.

Core Library

The purpose of the Core Library
is to have available for study of representative cores from rock formations
in different parts of New Mexico. The Core Library consists of six warehouses,
a processing area, and tables for examining core. Microscopes are available
for visitors' use.

We allow samples of
cores to be taken provided that at least one-half of the core remains
for future examination and that copies of any analytical reports be shared
with us. All sampling must be approved beforehand. In addition to
the cores, location information, geophysical logs, drillers' logs, and
other material are available for many holes.

A box of slabbed core from a natural gas reservoir in the San Juan
Basin of New Mexico.

More than 4,000 cores donated by over 100 different companies and other organizations are ready for
examination. More than 540,000 ft (100 miles!) of drill core are present in our collection. The age of units in these cores ranges from Precambrian to
Holocene. Archived core is representative of oil, gas, coal, mineral, geothermal and
water exploration wells in New Mexico. A map showing the locations of cores in our collection may be found in this Earth Matters article. An Excel spreadsheet of the core in our collection can be accessed here (core list). Companies and individuals who wish to
donate core to the Core Library are asked to call or write.

A limited number ofporosity and permeability analysesof cores are available as scanned images in PDF format. These scans are of oil and gas core analyses that are in our collections and many contain ancilliary information such as oil or water saturation.

We have accumulated several petroelum source rock analyses made on cuttings, cores, and outcrops throughout the state. The most substantial part of these were made as part of our Petroleum Source Rock Project. Other major sets of source rock analyses were made as part of Bureau research projects. Yet others come from private entities that perform source rock analyses on our drill cuttings and cores. In return for allowing a limited number of destructive analyses to be performed on samples from our collections, we require that copies of the analyses be placed with us; after a confidentiality period of one year the analyses are made public. For a listing of petroleum source rock analyses, please click here.

Donations

During the past few years we
have received donations of more than 11,000 boxes of core from Amoco,
Altura, and El Paso Energy. In addition, we have acquired a substantial
portion of the Shell Oil Co. New Mexico core formerly stored at Texas
Bureau of Economic Geology facilities in Austin, TX and in Midland, TX.
We also receive smaller donations of core and cuttings from numerous entities
throughout the state, including oil and gas operators, mining companies,
and government entities such as the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and the
City of Albuquerque. These donations, as well as our extensive cuttings
and log libraries, establish our facility as the premier facility for
subsurface geological and oil and gas data for the state of New Mexico.
Our staff fields questions from industry geologists and engineers, the
general public, and state and federal oil & gas professionals on a
daily basis.

Our only substantial source
of funds to erect new buildings for core storage is through donations.
We hope that you will consider donating money for this worthy purpose
in order to save New Mexico core within New Mexico and place that core
with an organization whose employees understand the use and geology of
the core. As a public educational institution,
donations may be tax deductible. At present, it costs more than $250,000
to construct a 30 by 100 ft insulated and ventilated steel core building
and equip it with sturdy shelving and other necessary equipment. Please
help us preserve New Mexico core and keep New Mexico core in New Mexico. Please consider making a donation if you have utilized our facilities and found them useful.

Fee Structure for access to cuttings/core and logs from the Subsurface and Core Libraries

Our
user fees are very low and are used to defray costs associated with
student assistants and expendable materials and supplies. We have
also designed and built our facilities so that maintenance and upkeep costs
are near zero. This keeps costs down.

Cuttings

On site
examination: no charge

Mail order:
shipping costs

Core

On site
examination: no charge; visitor pulls and reshelves boxes (liability
release required)

Mail order:
shipping costs (maximum number of boxes we will normally
ship is 10 unless special arrangements are made)

Well Logs

Orders for well logs
should include as much of the following information as possible for
each log ordered: location of the well in terms of section, township,
range, and county; name of the person or company that drilled the
well, well number, and lease name. At present we are not able to provide LAS digital log files.

Log Copies (paper): $0.50/linear ft of paper

Log Scans: $8.00 per scan

Mail order means that we ship
the cuttings or core to you for inspection.